Laurent Berger’s CFDT Departure: Hollande Praises Tenacious Union Leader
The former President of the Republic insists Wednesday on France Inter on the legitimacy acquired by the CFDT and its latest positions on the pension reform, while Marylise Léon takes the head of the union.
Laurent Berger is tenacious”, the union leader “did not give in on his positions”, greets Wednesday June 21 on France Inter the former President of the Republic François Hollande, while the general secretary of the CFDT gives way to Marylise Léon.
Laurent Berger had been at the head of the union since 2012. And for the former head of state, the leader of the CFDT always “said from the start what he could not tolerate”, setting his red lines. This did not mean, specifies François Hollande that “the State had to undergo or submit to this red line”. “We knew her and I knew that if we went further, there would be a distance from the CFDT,” he adds.
“A kind of stubbornness” by Emmanuel Macron on pensions
The former President of the Republic thus recalls that during the mobilization against the Labor bill carried by Myriam El Khomri, in 2016, Laurent Berger refused any “provision which would make a scale mandatory for the years of industrial tribunal allowances” . “When, in the first version, it had not been respected, the CFDT was in the street with the other trade union organizations which contested the project, and when there was a return to what was, for him, acceptable, he supported the text”, reports François Hollande.
He insists on the legitimacy acquired by the CFDT and its latest positions on pension reform. On this point, Laurent Berger’s red line remains “a postponement of the legal retirement age”. François Hollande therefore accuses his successor, Emmanuel Macron, of having “lack of lucidity” in the face of the trade unions and their demands. He denounces in particular a “kind of obstinacy” on the part of the head of state not to “give up anything on the age” of departure. François Hollande regrets on France Inter that Laurent Berger felt “with the trade unions, dismissed, despised”.
This article is originally published on francetvinfo.fr
